Pubdate: 29 Dec 1998 Source: Reuters Copyright: 1998 Reuters Limited. Author: Saeed Azhar PAKISTAN BUSTS HEROIN SMUGGLING RING KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Pakistani anti-drug authorities said on Tuesday they had busted a smuggling ring that had mailed up to $1.5 billion worth of heroin out of the country over the last 13 years. "The gang unearthed at the international mail office in Pakistan had smuggled around 2,000 to 3,000 kg (4,400 to 6,600 lb) of heroin...," Mukhtar Ahmed, regional director of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, told reporters in Karachi. He valued the consignments at $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion. Ahmed said seven mail office employees in Karachi had been arrested this month. He said the alleged smugglers took wrongly addressed parcels and letters sent to Pakistan, put heroin inside them, changed the return addresses and mailed them back out of the country. Ahmed said the countries involved were in Europe and Africa. He said his agency began monitoring the international mail office this year, since two such parcels were discovered. "The persons were pinpointed and all of them kept under surveillance. Eventually in December they were apprehended red handed," he said. Pakistan is the main smuggling route for the heroin produced in war- ravaged Afghanistan where poppy cultivation has thrived during the last few years. Anti-drug authorities say they seized 1.4 tonnes of opium, 1.1 tonnes of heroin, 27 tonnes of hash and 1.5 tonnes of other drugs in first six months of 1998. Because of the huge amounts of smuggling, Ahmed also said he wanted drug cases to be tried in special military courts set up recently in Karachi. "It is something we have been talking between ourselves but is not at the government level... Certainly there is a consensus within the department that these cases should go (to the military courts)", he said. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif set up the military courts last month to speedily try serious crimes, such as murder and kidnapping, in an attempt to end waves of ethnic, political and sectarian violence in Karachi which have killed more than 800 this year. Ahmed said his agency has made a string of drug seizures in the last two years and arrested 169 people. It was also given the power to freeze the assets of drug smugglers two years ago. "We have also frozen assets of drug smugglers worth 1.9 billion rupees ($41.2 million) during the last two years," he said. ($146.11) - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski